The invention relates to a folding wheelchair for the handicapped especially for use in connection during travels on land or water vehicles or in airplanes which generally have no space for the handicapped person's own especially designed wheelchair. The folding wheelchair according to the present invention is particularly adapted to permit a disabled person to use the on-board toilet facilities of a vehicle which, because of the small space available, would not normally be possible even if the disabled person had his or her own wheelchair on board. For good space utilization, it is desirable that such a wheelchair is collapsible so that it can easily be stowed away. Further, for ease of handling and small deadweight, it is necessary that such a wheelchair is lightweight but nevertheless sturdy when in use and that it is also easily foldable and unfoldable.
One folding wheelchair design known in the art consists of a subframe provided with swivel casters and having hinged thereto telescopic support tubes which may be tilted up and whose length may be hydraulically adjusted. A seat including a backrest is supported on the telescopic support tubes by means of a pair of rails on which the seat is movable back and forth. The seat itself includes a hinged center portion which may be pivoted downwardly and out of the way whereupon the seat may be moved backward above a toilet so that the disabled person may use the toilet without assistance while remaining seated in the wheelchair.
In order for this wheelchair to be foldable it includes between the seat and the backrest, and also between the seat and the support tubes or rather the tracks mounted thereon, a shaft extending crosswise and permitting the backrest to be pivoted down onto the seat and, upon downward pivoting of the support tubes, the seat to be lowered onto the subframe.
A disadvantage of the described wheelchair is that the pair of hydraulically operated support tubes together with the tracks for the support of the seat result in a heavy design so that such a seat becomes quite heavy and difficult to handle. Not only is such a wheelchair hard to fold and unfold but, at the same time, it is difficult to use and manipulate the wheelchair which task has to be performed by the handicapped, especially when using the toilet facilities.
It is therefore the principal object of the present invention to provide a wheelchair of the type referred to above, which wheelchair, however, is relatively light in weight but nevertheless sturdy enough to fulfill all requirements on such a chair and which is easy to use for a disabled person to that such person is able to manipulate the wheelchair for all its intended uses.